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Atlantic Tropical Action 2011 - Part II


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It is funny that I have associated his name with the oil-slick theory since an article appeared in a Miami newspaper talking about that slick approach several years ago. His name was mentioned probably something like this under a picture: "K. Emanuel conducts experiment on the feasibility of polymer reducing power of hurricanes." The article was probably ambiguous about who came up with the idea in the first place. Either I didn't read the article completely through, or the writer of the article was not complete in his presentation of who said what.

It seemed odd to me as I have seen several of his papers and presentations live and he and those papers seemed much more down to earth.

Doing a quick search now I see that he disputed the idea, for the very reason I eluded to in my post: dispersion of the slick by the turbulent ocean under a hurricane. One entry contains the following:

Alexandre Chorin of the University of California, Berkeley proposed dropping large amounts of environmentally friendly oils on the sea surface to prevent droplet formation.[10] Experiments by Kerry Emanuel[11] of MIT in 2002 suggested that hurricane-force winds would disrupt the oil slick, making it ineffective.[12]

So, my apologies to Mr. Emanuel for misinterpreting the who and why of the oil-slick approach to hurricane modification.

2002? I was the one who did that 2002 experiment under Dr. Emanuel with hexadecanol. The hypothesis was that it wouldn't work for the reason stated above, and I showed that the monolayer broke down with basic surface disruptions of the water. It was a short and limited thesis, but I am pretty sure that he discounted the ocean surface "oil" idea after that spring semester. He and his grad student in the Wind-Wave lab, Moshe Alamoro, had a falling out later on as Moshe moved to another university and suggested the crazy idea of gigantic fans on the coast to alter the upper level steering winds.

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There are definite hurricane cycles from Florida and Texas...but in the records you can see the tracks slowly change from East coast in the 1990s, to Florida and the Gulf coast in the 2000s. The long term hurricane cycle for Texas still indicates above average activity into 2014 (basically a hurricane a year on average during their active portion of the cycle). This forecast hasn't changed since the 1990s, if not 1950s.

DR

The 1950's where east coast and 1960's more gulf coast. The 1990's more east coast, while again the 2000's where more gulf again. Repeat again and again. The 2010's could be east coast??? Maybe there is a long term pattern.

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Hmmmm... the consensus from known agencies and people from this board for # of NS is around 15-16, I think... that's looking a bit low now. I'm very close to making a weak El Niño a very very low probability event...even neutral warm looks like a long fetch at the moment. Might it be that the effects of the Final Warming are close to an end, and the +QBO and -PDO are driving the bus now? I know it might be the wane phase from the wax and wane cycle, but in the short and medium range it looks like easterlies are taking control of the eq Pacific. Significant changes past spring and June of the past winter ENSO phase are rare after July. Not a call for a full fledged Niña yet, but neutral cold looks like a very good call for summer. The only caveat is that GLAAM is positive, but could be trending negative soon.

Also, the -NAO has been reinforcing the already warm TNA lately and will continue so in the short term. May reversed the declining trend and June will probably reinforce the warming. In contrast to 2010, the warmest anomalies are closer to the Windward/Leeward islands and the Caribbean. Those warm anomalies will probably migrate farther west during the season.

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The models are beginning to converge on a solution that brings a rather robust tropical wave near the Windward Islands later this week. As this wave axis traverses the Caribbean, the Euro suggests a slow NW turn develops later in the period that nears the Yucatan and eventually in the Gulf. And of course the Canadian blows up a storm in the longer range...

post-32-0-23047100-1307873058.gif

post-32-0-87483400-1307873074.gif

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The models are beginning to converge on a solution that brings a rather robust tropical wave near the Windward Islands later this week. As this wave axis traverses the Caribbean, the Euro suggests a slow NW turn develops later in the period that nears the Yucatan and eventually in the Gulf. And of course the Canadian blows up a storm in the longer range...

Cool. We're getting well into June now-- so in a week or so it won't be so futile to be hoping for development.

I have to remind myself that Jorge and I went chasing Alex last year in June. Good stuff can happen...

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Looks like another super Kelvin wave will be moving the through the Atlantic early next week. There doesn't look to be much of a pre-existing disturbance this time (unlike 94L), so it might not amount to much, but I'd say June 20-22 is the next good shot at Atlantic genesis.

Beyond that, it's tough to say. Ensemble and statistical MJO forecasts are pretty blah. I'd thought the current wave over the Maritime Continent/South China Sea would make it to the Western Hemisphere by the end of the month, but the models are just killing it off instead. Otherwise, it looks to me like we'll just have to get lucky with the synoptic pattern to get something going.

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Looks like another super Kelvin wave will be moving the through the Atlantic early next week. There doesn't look to be much of a pre-existing disturbance this time (unlike 94L), so it might not amount to much, but I'd say June 20-22 is the next good shot at Atlantic genesis.

Beyond that, it's tough to say. Ensemble and statistical MJO forecasts are pretty blah. I'd thought the current wave over the Maritime Continent/South China Sea would make it to the Western Hemisphere by the end of the month, but the models are just killing it off instead. Otherwise, it looks to me like we'll just have to get lucky with the synoptic pattern to get something going.

I'm not going to be upset if June is quiet. Some of my favorite seasons of old, 1980, 1983, 1992 didn't get fun until August. If one discounts the one real storm early, Alex, 2010 didn't get interesting until August,

I do wish we'd get at least a TD for the drought, but I can be patient.

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How about something even more hideous ala Fiona 2010. Where do I show up for a good flogging?

Oh, that merits worse than a flogging-- much worse! :lmao:

Gotta love this little guy.

Only threatening thing from this would be an intermittent disruption of your tanning.

200803252330gms6xvis1km_high24PNONA.jpg

Are my eyes playing tricks on me or is that thing swirling the wrong way?

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Another question since its a quiet period, what exactly does the satellite measure to infer Saharan Dust? I only ask because I don't think the Western GOMEX is all that dusty.

splitEW.jpg

from CIMSS:

Meteosat-8 Split Window:

Background: This imagery is created by differencing the 12.0 and 10.8µm infrared channels on the Meteosat-8 satellite. The algorithm is sensitive to the presence of dry and/or dusty air in the lower atmosphere (~600-850 hPa or ~4,500-1,500 m) and is denoted by the yellow to red shading.

Uses: This imagery is useful for monitoring the position and movement of dry air masses such as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL). Animations of the imagery are useful for tracking these features and can also help identify the source of the dry and/or dusty air that is indicated in the imagery.

Notes:

• Dry air and suspended aerosols (e.g. mineral dust) both contribute to a positive "SAL" signal in this imagery, but the relative contribution of each cannot be determined from this imagery alone.

Polar air originating from the mid-latitudes produces a positive signal in this imagery that is similar to that of the SAL. This is because both air masses contain substantial dry air in the lower to middle troposphere. The JAVA movie is a useful tool for determining which type of air mass is being indicated in the imagery.

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